4 ms·

There's no answer to the "Why" question to be found here.

chrisseaton 8y ago
> some Paleolithic humans regarded some of their dogs not merely materialistically, in terms of their utilitarian value, but already had a strong emotional bond with these animals > ancient humans found the animals to be important enough to stay close to even in death They buried their dogs with them because their dogs were important to them, for the many reasons listed in the article. I'm not sure what more explanation you're looking for - you're not going to get a more definitive explanation of the thought processes someone who's long dead are you? Also the headline says that a study is looking at it. They didn't claim to have a clear answer.
- revskill 8y ago
  Those "reasons" you listed is not factual reasons. Just a claim "from the sky" and you consider it as reason ? Me not.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  You quote them giving precise and definitive answers, then say they can't give them. They can, and seemingly have given such answers, just entirely unscientifically. >They buried their dogs with them because their dogs were important to them, for the many reasons listed in the article. Or, they kept excess puppies as food, and buried food with bodies; or they considered the animals to be tools and thought they'd be useful in the next life. Nothing they mention seems to imply, nor require emotional attachment. The food angle seems weird, if you don't make any effort to procure different food then doesn't that show less attachment; only feeding the animal any excess (for example) seems less attached than preparing a specific diet.
  - krater 8y ago
    It could very well be that the living knew the burden of caring for a dog, and from an economic perspective, were not interested in feeding it, and taking it on walks to go number two. The point being (to explicitly spell unsaid things out) that in cases where a dog was buried with the owner, the owner died first, and the dog did not die of natural causes. So, customs may have been that the dog dies with you, if no one comes forward and wants to take care of it. You have to figure that sometimes, there was a place for the dog to go. That the dog was friendly enough, and that the dying had peers and kinship with neighbors and tribal bonds, such that a pet dog was familiar to those they associated with. Enough that the pet might find a new guardian, and not go stray. In other cases, the personality of the pet, as a self-sufficient animal, capable of surviving without the support of socializing among humans, would mean that the pet could wander off to safety, escaping euthanasia. So, it's all circumstantial. Only the truly domesticated animals would have been killed, and buried as a possession that the living did not value so much that they preferred it alive. In other cases, you have to figure the dying owner was burden themselves, and that the people assisting them, in their final days were relieved by their death, and glad to see all they owned get buried and burned with them.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    As I said, nobody can ever have a definitive answer for someone's motivation for doing something. Any reasonable person knows that so the report takes the linguistic shortcut of just stating their assumptions. Anyone reading this article and expecting some kind of falsifiable scientific proof of a human's intentions is not going to get it.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      And their assumption is backed up by later cultures, still thousands of years in our past, from which we have written records. People seem to have placed high value on their dogs both as tools and companions then too. Considering the long history of dog domestication, it is not at all unreasonable to assume that earlier cultures had similar relationships.
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Species being useful, and species being food are not always contradictory (cf draught animals). Perhaps they only ate the really good dogs to retain their essence ...
  - simonh 8y ago
    >Or, they kept excess puppies as food, We’d find knife marks on dog bones at their refuse sites, from the butchering process, and dog proteins in their faeces. That’s how we know a lot of ancient populations practiced cannibalism.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      >We’d find knife marks on dog bones at their refuse sites // Are you saying we don't; that's kinda fascinating because I'd expect all creatures with pelts to be skinned if found recently dead, or killed (eg for mercy, food, ritual). >"Samuel Belknap III, a graduate research assistant working under the direction of Kristin Sobolik in UMaine’s Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, found a 9,400-year-old skull fragment of a domestic dog during analysis of an intact human paleofecal sample. >"The fact that the bone was found in human waste provides the earliest proof that humans in the New World used domesticated dogs as food sources. >"“This is an important scientific discovery that can tell us not only a lot about the genetic history of dogs but of the interactions between humans and dogs in the past,” said Belknap. “Not only were they most likely companions as they are today, they served as protection, hunting assistants, and also as a food source.”" (https://phys.org/news/2011-01-oldest-domesticated-dog-americas.html https://phys.org/news/2011-01-oldest-domesticated-dog-americ...) //
      - simonh 8y ago
        For specific cultures I'm not familiar with I have no idea, but people can and do eat dog meat. I'm just saying such questions are not purely in the realm of unverifiable speculation as there is specific physical evidence we can look for. My wife is Chinese from Hohhot and used to have a taste for it, though not so much these days.
raincom 8y ago
Or we get lots of ad hoc answers to the "Why" question. Sometimes, the nature of the question itself changes.

> some Paleolithic humans regarded some of their dogs not merely materialistically, in terms of their utilitarian value, but already had a strong emotional bond with these animals > ancient humans found the animals to be important enough to stay close to even in death They buried their dogs with them because their dogs were important to them, for the many reasons listed in the article. I'm not sure what more explanation you're looking for - you're not going to get a more definitive explanation of the thought processes someone who's long dead are you? Also the headline says that a study is looking at it. They didn't claim to have a clear answer.

revskill 8y ago
Those "reasons" you listed is not factual reasons. Just a claim "from the sky" and you consider it as reason ? Me not.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
You quote them giving precise and definitive answers, then say they can't give them. They can, and seemingly have given such answers, just entirely unscientifically. >They buried their dogs with them because their dogs were important to them, for the many reasons listed in the article. Or, they kept excess puppies as food, and buried food with bodies; or they considered the animals to be tools and thought they'd be useful in the next life. Nothing they mention seems to imply, nor require emotional attachment. The food angle seems weird, if you don't make any effort to procure different food then doesn't that show less attachment; only feeding the animal any excess (for example) seems less attached than preparing a specific diet.
- krater 8y ago
  It could very well be that the living knew the burden of caring for a dog, and from an economic perspective, were not interested in feeding it, and taking it on walks to go number two. The point being (to explicitly spell unsaid things out) that in cases where a dog was buried with the owner, the owner died first, and the dog did not die of natural causes. So, customs may have been that the dog dies with you, if no one comes forward and wants to take care of it. You have to figure that sometimes, there was a place for the dog to go. That the dog was friendly enough, and that the dying had peers and kinship with neighbors and tribal bonds, such that a pet dog was familiar to those they associated with. Enough that the pet might find a new guardian, and not go stray. In other cases, the personality of the pet, as a self-sufficient animal, capable of surviving without the support of socializing among humans, would mean that the pet could wander off to safety, escaping euthanasia. So, it's all circumstantial. Only the truly domesticated animals would have been killed, and buried as a possession that the living did not value so much that they preferred it alive. In other cases, you have to figure the dying owner was burden themselves, and that the people assisting them, in their final days were relieved by their death, and glad to see all they owned get buried and burned with them.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  As I said, nobody can ever have a definitive answer for someone's motivation for doing something. Any reasonable person knows that so the report takes the linguistic shortcut of just stating their assumptions. Anyone reading this article and expecting some kind of falsifiable scientific proof of a human's intentions is not going to get it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    And their assumption is backed up by later cultures, still thousands of years in our past, from which we have written records. People seem to have placed high value on their dogs both as tools and companions then too. Considering the long history of dog domestication, it is not at all unreasonable to assume that earlier cultures had similar relationships.
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      Species being useful, and species being food are not always contradictory (cf draught animals). Perhaps they only ate the really good dogs to retain their essence ...
- simonh 8y ago
  >Or, they kept excess puppies as food, We’d find knife marks on dog bones at their refuse sites, from the butchering process, and dog proteins in their faeces. That’s how we know a lot of ancient populations practiced cannibalism.
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    >We’d find knife marks on dog bones at their refuse sites // Are you saying we don't; that's kinda fascinating because I'd expect all creatures with pelts to be skinned if found recently dead, or killed (eg for mercy, food, ritual). >"Samuel Belknap III, a graduate research assistant working under the direction of Kristin Sobolik in UMaine’s Department of Anthropology and Climate Change Institute, found a 9,400-year-old skull fragment of a domestic dog during analysis of an intact human paleofecal sample. >"The fact that the bone was found in human waste provides the earliest proof that humans in the New World used domesticated dogs as food sources. >"“This is an important scientific discovery that can tell us not only a lot about the genetic history of dogs but of the interactions between humans and dogs in the past,” said Belknap. “Not only were they most likely companions as they are today, they served as protection, hunting assistants, and also as a food source.”" (https://phys.org/news/2011-01-oldest-domesticated-dog-americas.html https://phys.org/news/2011-01-oldest-domesticated-dog-americ...) //
    - simonh 8y ago
      For specific cultures I'm not familiar with I have no idea, but people can and do eat dog meat. I'm just saying such questions are not purely in the realm of unverifiable speculation as there is specific physical evidence we can look for. My wife is Chinese from Hohhot and used to have a taste for it, though not so much these days.

raincom 8y ago

Or we get lots of ad hoc answers to the "Why" question. Sometimes, the nature of the question itself changes.